Lincoln Townley | Skull Banker | Venice Biennale

Lincoln Townley (b. 1971)
Skull Banker | Venice Biennale
Mixed media | Original

Lincoln Townley exhibited at the Venice Biennale — one of the most rigorously curated platforms in the international art world — and Skull Banker | Venice Biennale is among the works that defined his presence there. The skull, in Townley's hands, is never merely a memento mori: it is a site of psychological investigation, a form that carries the history of art while refusing to be contained by it.

The Banker iteration of this motif adds a specific layer of social commentary. Townley has been direct about his interest in the mechanisms of power, finance, and self-destruction — themes drawn in part from his own history. The mixed-media surface of this work — built up over multiple sessions, dense with material incident — carries that weight without illustration. This is not a painting about banking. It is a painting about the human capacity for both creation and ruin, using the vocabulary Townley has spent his career developing.

Collected by Al Pacino, Sylvester Stallone, and Robbie Williams, and sold through Sotheby's, Christie's, and Bonhams, Townley's market is established and active. Venice Biennale works carry additional provenance significance.

Available exclusively through Creed Gallery, Ascot. Private viewings by appointment for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey, and London.

Original
Mixed media
Venice Biennale provenance
Certificate of Authenticity